Allegiant Air Flight 803
Airbus A319-112 and Cessna M337B · Incident: air traffic event during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS21LA002
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Airbus A319-112
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A319
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N306NV
- Operator
- Allegiant Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2005)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Air traffic event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Cessna M337B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N370SD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG), St. Petersburg, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1969)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Near midair/TCAS alert/loss of separation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Review of the radar data showed that N370SD, a Cessna 337, was on a right downwind for runway 22 at 300 feet when it overflew runway 18, and at the same time Allegiant Air flight 803 (AAY803), an Airbus A319, was at 200 feet departing runway 18. The closest proximity was 100 feet vertically and 369 feet laterally. The crew of AAY803 saw the Cessna 337 and took evasive action by stopping their takeoff climb and maintaining 200 feet, and flew underneath the Cessna 337, which was at 300 feet as the airplane’s paths intersected over the runways. The local controller did not visually scan all runways and airspace when he instructed the Cessna 337 pilot to enter a right downwind, and again, when he issued a takeoff clearance to the Allegiant Air flight; the lack of fully scanning all runways and airspace resulted in the local controller losing situational awareness of the Cessna 337, and ultimately not ensuring positive control and separation between the Allegiant Air flight and the Cessna 337. The Cessna 337 pilot’s downwind leg for runway 22 was significantly less than the standard 1/2 to 1 mile defined downwind leg distance from the runway, which placed the Cessna 337 in a closer vicinity to the runway intersections than what was expected. Additionally, the Cessna 337 pilot did not fly a standard traffic pattern altitude, and the local controller did not instruct or advise the pilot that the traffic pattern altitude was 1,000 feet. PIE airport did not have a charted traffic pattern altitude.
Probable cause
The air traffic controller’s failure to properly scan the runway and local area, and their general loss of situational awareness, resulting in a near midair collision. Contributing to the incident was the Cessna 337 pilot's poor decision making when he failed to fly the standard downwind leg distance from the runway and to maintain the standard traffic pattern altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS21LA002
- Event ID
- 20210507103049
- Case number
- OPS21LA002
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, cause areas, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f196f68483fb4f789005df5e4ff4e5608e81d9fd97d39b28881b2d18adbee61c; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:35:42.054Z.